Coffee with Kierkegaard

 

Faith therefore is not an aesthetic emotion but something far higher, precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition;  it is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence.

- Søren Kierkegaard

It was early on Saturday. Surrounded by soupy overcast skies and with a twinge of change in the weather, I ventured out to the downtown bookshop, Pressed. It's a delight coming early in the morning, as the quiet atmosphere makes me feel as if it's all my own, for a few minutes anyway. After ordering a coffee and a brief browse of the shelves (saying hello to my own published books on the shelves) I settle down at a table with a rose latte (wonderfully delicious), and pull out the book I keep anticipating getting to open again for any time I can grab - Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard. 

This is a re-read for me, but oh how this is like reading all afresh. I have learned in the last few years how to read S.K. as I would find myself sometimes feeling rather confused by his genius. He's hard to keep up with sometimes, so with him I read slowly, digesting each sentence. I now follow him with a deeper understanding, and wow, the effort is worth it. He makes me think about things I realize now I have always pondered and yet never explored. And he argues head-on with the philosophical viewpoints of his day (which have passed down to our own day in altered ways through Hegel then others). S.K. is now known as the grandfather of existentialism. Future philosophers take pieces of his ideas (on the individual and the absurd) to create their own version of modern 20th century philosophy, yet removed from Christianity. When those modern thinkers talk about the absurd, this is what S.K. holds up for us to see more deeply into the paradox of Christianity in Fear and Trembling.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is well known to us, and yet how have we explained this story? Have we failed to see by what ethical and moral standards this story makes sense in the world where a father is set to sacrifice his son? S.K. argues that there is something higher than the moral and ethical of this world, and he looks to the story of Abraham as containing a teleological suspension of the ethical. The teleological is that which is concerned with the design and purpose in the materials world. S.K. explains that looking at Abraham from a purely ethical standpoint (as if ethics was the highest thing, which by the way would be thinking like a Greek), Abraham could be called a murderer. The fact that he was willing to sacrifice (murder) his beloved son is a terrible thing to behold in that viewpoint. And yet, if we are able to suspend our worldly view of the ethical and accept that by virtue of the absurd (meaning something which we cannot explain or understand) we can come to the conclusion that there is something higher at work here, something far greater, that is faith.

Abraham is the representative of faith, and that faith is normally expressed in him whose life is not merely the most paradoxical that can be thought but so paradoxical that it cannot be thought at all. He acts by virtue of the absurd, for it is precisely absurd that he as the particular is higher than the universal...By virtue of the absurd he gets Isaac again. Abraham is therefore at no instant a tragic hero but something quite different, either a murderer or a believer. The middle term which saves the tragic hero, Abraham has not. Hence it is that I can understand the tragic hero but cannot understand Abraham, though in a certain crazy sense I admire him more than all other men.

S.K. compares Abraham with the Greek tragic heroes to pull different points on how they are not representing the same thing. For the Greek tragic hero, the ethical is the highest, that is, a relationship between father, son, daughter, etc. There is no personal relationship with their deity. There is nothing higher than that in their world. However, S.K. is drawing us to overstep the ethical entirely and into a higher telos (end).

Abraham is willing to give everything up (resign it all, including his most beloved son Isaac) for God, which S.K. refers to as infinite resignation. Doing this allows one to be lead to faith, and in faith one acquires everything. This is why Abraham is known for his faith, and praised for it. He gave everything up to gain it all through faith.

I have much more to read - but reading into S.K.'s thoughts makes me feel the need to stop and think about it, write about it, and keep reading. Hopefully I will get to have some more coffee with Kierkegaard soon.